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]\o. 40. 

Premium Tract, to which $200 was awarded by a Committee consisting 
of Rev. F. Way'-ind, D. D., Rt. Rev. T. M. Clark, D. D., of R. L, C. 
Stoddart, Esq.,' Mass., and Rev. D. Brown, D. D., of Scotland. 

THE PAMILY RELATION, 

AS APPECTED BT 

SLAVERY. 



« First Pure, then Peaceable. 



Oppression has existed in every age of the world. 
Even now eighteen hundred years since the religion of 
Jesus was first published to mankind, its beautiful repre- 
sentation that the strong were made strong precisely 
that they might serve and help the weak, is little under- 
stood, and less acted upon. 

The particular form of oppression known as American 
Slavery, was commenced in what all admit to have been 
an unjustifiable manner. The original seizure of men, 
women and children, on the coast of Africa, for the 
purpose of bringing them to this country and selling 
them as slaves, was a system of brutal violence, autho- 
rized by no law, and condemned alike by justice and 
humanity. Those who committed this wickedness are 
dead, and gone to their account. For their acts, no man 
now living is responsible. 

After this system had been some time in operation 
as a matter of fact, it began to be recognized and regu- 
lated by law ; and, in whatever lawless violence slavery 
first commenced, it now exists, and is carried on, under 
the control of an accurately defined system of laws. To 
write intelligently, therefore, about slavery as it now is, 
we must inquire how the existing laws constitute and 
define it. 

Twenty-nine years ago, there was published in Phila- 
delphia, "J. Sketch of the Laws relating to Slavery in the 



.V\]5'{2 



several States of the United States of America ; hy Georgt 
M. Stroud." This volume has been ever since regarded 
as the best authority upon the subject of which it 
treats, and its accurac}^ and impartiality, so far as we 
know, have never been questioned. But in the lapse of 
so many years, changes and additions have been made 
to these laws ; and to meet the want thence arising, 
Judge Stroud has published a second edition of his 
^'Sketch of the Laws relating to Slavery" — '■'■'with some 
alterations and considerable additions," in the autumn of 
the present year, 1856. This book therefore will show 
us, precisely and accurately, what Slavery is, as now 
established by law, and what authority every slaveholder 
is legally authorized to exercise. Such differences as 
exist between the statutes of the different States are 
carefully specified in the book ; but a substantial resem- 
blance exists between all the slave codes, sufficient fully 
to authorize the following general statement of 

What American Slavery is as established by Law. 

I. The master may determine the kind, and degree, 
and time of labor to which the slave shall be subjected. 

II. The master may supply the slave with such food 
and clothing only, both as to quantity and quality, as 
he may think proper or find convenient. 

III. The master may, at his discretion, inflict any 
punishment upon the person of his slave. 

ly. All the power of the master over his slave, may 
be exercised not by himself only in person, but by any 
one whom he may depute as Lis agent. 

V. Slaves have no legal rights of property in things, 
real or personal, but whatever they may acquire, belongs 
in point of law, to their masters. 

YI. The slave, being a personal chattel, is at all times- 
liable to be sold absolutely, or mortgaged, or leased, at 
the will of his master. 

VII. He may also be sold by process of law for the 
satisfaction of the debts of a living, or the debts and 
bequests of a deceased master, at the suit of creditors 
or legatees. 



AS AFFECTED BY SLAVERY. 3 

VIII. A slave cannot be a party before a judicial tri- 
bunal in any species of action against his master, no 
matter how atrocious may have been the injury received 
from him. 

IX. Slaves cannot redeem themselves, nor obtain a 
change of masters, though cruel treatment may Jiave 
rendered such change necessary for their personal safety. 

X. Slaves being objects of 'property^ if injured by 
third persons, their owners may bring suit, and recover 
damages to themselves for the injury done to their 
slaves. 

XI. Slaves can make no contract, not even matri- 
mony. 

XII. Slavery is hereditary and perpetual. 

XIII. A slave cannot be a witness against a white 
person, either in a civil or criminal cause. 

XIV. A slave cannot be a party to a civil suit. 
XY. The benefits of education are withheld from the 

slave. 

XVI. The means for moral and religious education 
are not granted to the slave ; on the contrary, the efforts 
of the humane and charitable to supply these wants, are 
discountenanced by law. 

XVII. Submission is required of the slave, not to the 
will of his master only, but to that of all other white 
persons. 

XVIII. The penal codes of the slaveholding States 
bear much more severely upon slaves than upon white 
persons for the same offence. 

XIX. Trial of slaves upon criminal accusations is, in 
most of the slave States, different from that which is ob- 
served in respect to free white persons, and the difference 
is injurious to the slave, and inconsistent with the rights 
of humanity. 

Such are the powers of the master and the disabilities 
of the slave, as established hy law throughout the slave 
region generally. 

We know, however, that severe and inequitable laws 
sometimes stand, a dead letter, on the statute Kbok, long 
after they have ceased to be put in force. To be assured, 



4 THE FAMILY RELATION, 

therefore, respecting the actually existing character of 
slavery, we need to make the further inquiry. 

Are such slave cases as happen to come before 

THE COURTS OF THE SLAVE StATES DECIDED WITH A RIGOR 
CORRESPONDING TO THE SEVERITY OF THE CODE ABOVE 
QUOTED ? 

As a reply to this inquiry, we quote the ruling of va- 
rious Southern judges, in cases actually tried by them. 

"Souther vs. the Commonwealth of Virginia," 7 Grat- 
tan, 073, 1851. In delivering the opinion of the 
court, Judge Field said: 

" It has been decided by this court in Turner's case, 

5 Rand., that the owner of a slave, for the malicious, 
cruel, and excessive beating of his own slave, can not 
be indicted. It is the policy of the law, in respect to 
the relation of master and slave, and for the sake of 
securing proper subordination and obedience on the 
part of the slave, to protect the master from prosecu- 
tion in all such cases, [of punishment not resulting in 
death,] even if the whipping and punishment be ma- 
licious, cruel, and excessive. ' 

In another case of cruel and unreasonable punish- 
ment not resulting in death, " State vs. Mann," Decem. 
term, 1829, 2 Devereaux's North Carolina Rep. 263, 
the opinion of the court, delivered by Judge Ruffin, 
afterward Chief Justice of the State of North Carolina, 
contained the following statements : 

" The end [of slavery] is the profit of the master, 
his security, and the public safety ; the subject, one 
doomed, in his own person and his posterity, to live 
without knowledge and without the capacity to make 
any thing his own, and to toil that another may reap 
the fruits. What moral considerations shall be ad- 
dressed to such a being, to convince him what it is 
impossible but that the most stupid must feel and know 
can never be true — that he is thus to labor upon a 
principle of natural duty, or for the sake of his own 
personal happiness? Such services can only be ex- 
pected from one who has no will of his own ; who 



AS AFFECTED BY SLAVERY. 5 

surrenders his will in implicit obedience to that of 
another. Such obedience is the consequence only of 
uncontrolled authority over the body. There is noth- 
ing else which can operate to produce this effect. The 

POWER OF THE MASTER JIUST BE ABSOLUTE TO RENDER 
THE SUBMISSION OF THE SLAVE PERFECT. I mOSt 

freely confess my sense of the harshness of this propo- 
sition. I feel it as deeply as any man can. And, as 

A principle of moral RIGHT, EVERY PERSON IN HIS 
RETIREMENT MUST REPUDIATE IT. But, in the aCtual 

condition of things, it must be so. There is no rem- 
edy. This discipline is inherent in the relation of 
3IASTER AND SLAVE. Judgment entered for the de- 
fendant." 

In "State of South Carolina vs. Mauer," 2 Hill's Kep., 
453, Judge O'Neal says : 

" The criminal offence of assault and battery can not, 
at common law, be committed upon the person of a 
slave. For notwithstanding (for some purposes) a slave 
is regarded by law as a person, yet generally he is a 
mere chattel personal, and his right of personal protec- 
tion belongs to his master, who can maintain an action 
of trespass for the battery of his slave. There can be, 
therefore, no offence against the State for a mei-e heat- 
ing of a slave tiiiaccompcmied loith any circumstances 
of cruelty., or an attempt to kill and murder. The 
peace of the State is not therehi/ hrohen ; for a slave is 
not generally regarded as legally capable of being 
within the peace of the State. He is not a citizen, and 
is not in that character entitled to her protection." 

We have abstained from describing the cruelties in- 
flicted in the cases above cited, because we wish to ap- 
peal to reason without painful excitement of feeling. 
Those cases are fair specimens of their class, and they 
show that the judicial decisions of slave cases do cor- 
respond in rigor to the laws. If then we remember 
that the slave can not bring any action whatever on 
his own account, and that he is likely to find no friend 
who will do this for him in opposition to his master, 
and that both the laws and the ordinary course of their 



@ THE FAMILY RELATIOX, 

administration, discourage any appeal to them in be- 
half of a slave, it will be sufficiently obvious that only 
a very small proportion of the cases of cruelty inflicted 
upon a slave, will come before the law at all for re- 
dress. 

Before being competent to judge, therefore, of the 
actual condition of the slave, under the rigorous laws, 
and the rigorous administration above cited, we must 
consider another question, namely — 

Do SLAVEHOLDERS ACTUALLY PRACTICE THE INJUS- 
TICE WHICH THEIR LAWS ALLOW? 

There is in every community a class of men better than 
the law; of men who, from natural nobleness of charac- 
ter, or high moral training, will scorn to use such op- 
portunities of doing wrong with impunity as the imper- 
fection of human laws may present to them. And espec- 
ially must such a law exist where the law is so unjust as 
systematically to favor the strong at the expense of the 
weak — the rich, at the expense of the poor — the intel- 
ligent, at the expense of the ignorant; and where the 
very judge who pronounces sentence according to law 
feels constrained to declare from the bench his sense of 
the injustice of the law, while he confesses that no sys- 
tem of rules less unjust, and no administration of them 
Zess rigorous, would effectually establish the dominion of 
the master over the slave. In such a community, there 
will certainly be some men and women hcffcr than the law. 

On the other hand, in such a community, as in every 
other, there will be a class of persons no better than the 
law; of persons who will be prevented by no scruple of 
honor, or justice, or humanity, or morality, or religion, 
from using, against those who are so unfortunate as to 
be within their power, every advantage which the law 
allows them. And this class will necessarily be larger 
than the former, since the uncultivated in manners and 
morals are more numerous than the cultivated in every 
community, especially where, as in the slave States, there 
are /ay free schools. 

It is owing to the interposition of members of the class 
first mentioned, that any cases, like those, the judicial 
decisions of which we have quoted as given in favor of 



AS AFFECTED BY SLAVERY. 7 

the master, come before the courts. Well known as the 
rigor of the law is in that region, upon that subject, some 
one must have thought, in presenting each of those cases 
for trial, that the frightful excess of cruelty displayed in 
it, gave some chance of a decision favorable to the 3.bused 
slave. If in so many such cases those compassionate 
hopes were disappointed, how numerous must be the cases 
where an amount of cruelty somewhat less passes as an 
ordinary transaction, unknown even to the few persons 
who would attempt to call the perpetrator to account. 

We will assume, however, that the great majority in a 
slaveholding community, (as certainly in every other 
community,) consists of persons intermediate between 
the two classes already described; persons who will ordi- 
narily treat their slaves with a certain amount of indul- 
gence, and who will use the extreme rigor permitted by 
the laws only under circumstances of peculiar temptation. 
We need only look at the many kinds, and the constantly 
recurring occasions, of special temptation to the absolute 
master of fifty men, boys, women, and girls, to see that 
the actual cases of abuse of power must be very frequent. 

To notice, for instance, only three of the many forms 
of special and powerful temptation, how numerous must 
be the cases of abuse of absolute and irresponsible power, 
occurring within the license of the law, under each of 
them. 

The temptation of sudden anger. Think, for a moment, 
how frequently loe should commit injustice, if, with our 
amount of moral training and self-control, the law of 
the land authorized us to inflict, on the spot, just what 
kind and just what amount of punishment we pleased, 
upon a stupid, or careless, or wasteful, or impudent, or 
lying, or cheating servant. But, from the very nature 
of slavery, from its necessary operation upon both blacks 
and whites, the servants under that system must be more 
faulty in all these respects, and the masters less accus- 
tomed to self-control, than under freedom. And anger 
not proceeding to the destruction of life, can always be 
gratified by the master or mistress, upon the slave, with 
absolute impunity. 

The teinpiatioR of lust. How shall a few feeble words 



8 THE FAMILY RELATION, 

tell the fearful amount, and the weighty significance of 
the truth upon this great subject? Think what is the 
too well known extent of licentiousness at the North — 
in city and country, among old and young; think of the 
difficulties encountered, and the expense lavished, the 
risks run, the laws violated, and the disgrace hazarded 
in the pursuit of illicit indulgence there; then think 
what it 7nnst be in the South, where all these obstacles 
are removed; where the temptation is always at hand — 
the legal authority absolute — the actual power com- 
plete — the vice a profitable one, in a country where men 
can and do sell their own children in the market, and 
get the highest price for the lightest color — and the cus- 
tom so universal as to bring with it no disgrace; and, 
lastly, see the statistics of actual vice in the 800,000 mu- 
lattoes of the South, nine hundred and ninety-nine out 
of every thousand of them a child of mere brutal lust — 
a disgrace to the father and a misfortune to the mother. 

The temptation of jyecuniar^ gain. We must look at 
the force of this temptation, not only as it exists in the 
worst class of men, not only where it is unchecked by 
any wish or attempt to do right, but where circum- 
stances of necessity, more or less urgent, co-operating 
with the laws and customs of the country, persuade a man 
or a woman to do something that they have long avoided 
and shrunk from, because they felt it to be unjust and 
cruel. Their poverty, but not their will, consents; and, 
without doubt, the slaveholder who carries off a man or 
a woman, a boy or a girl, where they will never more 
see father, mother, brother, or sister, very often pays the 
poverty rather than the will of the seller. But the sales 
are constantly made, notwithstanding. 

Many a man who, on being offered eighteen hundred 
dollars for the body and soul of a girl whose market 
value as a servant is only eight hundred, would indig- 
nantly say, Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this 
thing? will do it a year afterwards, when the urgent 
necessity for money comes. He will blush, he will feel 
disgraced in his own eyes, he will avoid looking in the 
face, or hearing the entreaties of his victim, but he will 
do it. Is it not time to make some change, when the 



AS AFFECTED BY SLAVERY. , 9 

very laws of a country are temptations, instead of ob- 
structions, to sin ? 

We have now considered what slavery is hy law, what 
it is in judicial administration, and what it is hy the 
practice of slaveholders generally. The answer to one 
more question will complete the very brief statement we 
can here make of slavery as it is, and prepare us to in- 
quire how it affects the family relation. 

Does the church set itself against that system 
OF injustice which we have seen to be supported 

BY THE laws AND SOCIAL CUSTOMS OF THE SoUTH ? Do 

THE Southern clergy preach against it, the South- 
ern CHURCHES forbid IT, THE SOUTHERN CHURCH MEM- 
BERS abstain FROM IT ? 

Alas ! all these practice slaveholding, and defend it. 
More than 600,000 slaves are held in bondage at the 
South, by men professing to be Christians, Not only is 
a man's reputation in the church absolutely unaffected by 
the holding, and buying and selling of slaves, but, if he 
chooses to take the trouble, he can find elaborate argu- 
ments in favor of slavery, written and printed by clergy- 
men, in every slaveholding State; and in many of the 
States, decisions of ecclesiastical bodies, in favor, not 
only of slavery as a whole, but of some of its worst con- 
stituent parts. Here are a few of these cases. 

The Shiloh Baptist Association, which met at Gourd- 
vine, Va., Sept., 1846, after the discussion of the question, 
Is a servant, whose husband or wife has been sold by his 
or her master into a distant country, to be permitted to 
marry again ? voted, " That in view of the circumstances 
in which servants in this country are placed, it is better 
to permit servants thus circumstanced to take another 
husband or wife." 

The Savannah River Association, after discussing the 
same question, voted the same answer, and gave this reason 
for it: " The slaves are not free agents, and a dissolution 
by death is not more entirely without their consent and 
beyond their control than by such separation." Here the 
right of a church member to sell husbands and wives 
apart icithout their consent, is taken for granted without 
discussion. 



10 THE FAMILY RELATION, 

The Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, in 1840, on motion of Rev. Dr. Few, of Georgia, 
*' Resolved, That it is inexpedient and unjustifiable for 
any preacher to permit colored persons to give testimony 
against white persons, in any State where they are denied 
that privilege by law." By this rule, which is now a part 
of the discipline of the church, more than 80,000 of its 
colored members are denied the right to testify against a 
white member in any case whatsoever. 

The Georgia Methodist Annual Conference declares 
that " slavery, as it exists in the United States, is not a 
moral evil." 

The Charleston Union Presbytery, of South Carolina, 
voted that " the holding of slaves, so far from being a sin 
in the sight of God, is nowhere condemned in his holy 
Word." 

The Society for the advancement of Christianity in 
South Corolina published, as a religious tract, for gratui- 
tous distribution, two sermons entitled " Rights and 
Duties of Slaveholders," in which occur the following 
sentences. 

" No man or set of men in our day, unless they can 
produce a new revelation from heaven, are entitled to pro- 
nounce slavery wrong." * -^ " Slavery, as it exists at the 
present day, is agreeable to the order of Divine Provi- 
dence." These sermons were written by Rev. George W. 
Freeman, preached in Raleigh, North Carolina, and 
specially requested for publication by L. S. Ives, bishop 
of that diocese. 

The Charleston Baptist Association " does not consider 
that the Holy Scriptures have made the fact of slavery a 
question of morals at all." 

Rev. James Smylie, of Mississippi, says, " The 25th 
chapter of Leviticus clearly and unequivocally establishes 
the fact that slavery was sanctioned by God himself, and 
that buying, selling, holding, and bequeathing slaves, as 
property, are regulations established by himself" 

This same statement was also voted by the Mississippi 
Presbytery, and also by the Amity Presbytery, of La. 

We may judge of the prevalence of slaveholding among 
Southern church members in all the principal sects, by 



AS AFFECTED BY SLAVERY. 11 

the following statement of tlie same Rev. James Smylie, 
in answer to a remonstrance against slavery : 

" If the buying, selling, and holding of a slave, for the sake ofgain^ 
is, as you say, a heinous sin and scandal, then verily three-fourths 
of all Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians, in the 
eleven [slaveholding] States of the Union are of the devil." 

The same clergyman declares, in the same pamphlet, that the laws 
of Mississippi and Louisiana, which prohibit, under heavy penalties, 
the teaching of slaves to read, "meet the approbation of the relig- 
ious part of the reflecting community." 

Rev. Dr. Fuller, Baptist, says, " I find my Bible condemning the 
abuses of slavery, but permitting the system itself." 

Rev. Thomas S. Witherspoon, Presbyterian, says, "I draw my 
warrant from the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, to 
hold the slave in bondage." 

Here, as in other departments of this great subject, for 
want of room, we can give only the briefest specimens 
of an immense mass of evidence. But enough has been 
given to show that the Southern Church supports slavery 
as thoroughly as the State. 

Having now established, by documentary evidence, the 
following points about slavery, namely, 

That it consists in the holding and using, buying and 
selling of men, women and children as property : 

That this claim of property in human beings super- 
sedes and nullifies all right of husband to wife, and of 
wife to husband, and of both to their children, and of all 
to the means of education, free locomotion, and property 
in the avails of their labor: and 

That this enormous injustice is supported by the laws 
of the State, the customs of the people, the teaching of 
the clergy, and the laws and customs of the church : 

We have now to consider, How does this institution 

AFFECT THE FAMILY RELATION? 

Does not the question answer itself? Does not such a 
system necessarily annihilate, to the slave, that beautiful, 
blessed relation, which we understand by " the family," 
and immensely deteriorate it to the master ? 

Let us look at it more closely. The primary constit- 
uent relations of the Family are those of husband and 
wife, parent and child. 

Husband and Wife. 
We will take it for granted that the principles properly 



12 THE FAMILY RELATION, 

regulating this relation are found in the following pre- 
cepts of Scripture : 

■" It is not good that man should be alone." 
';,"Let every man have his own wife, and let every 
woman have her own husband." 

" What God hath joined together, let not man put 
asunder." 

It is obvious that the slave knows nothing of the rela- 
tion which the Bible thus recognizes, defines, and en- 
joins. The laws and the customs, of both Church and 
State, debar him alike from its beauty, its sacredness, 
and its advantage. 

The slave laws decide that "A slave can make no con- 
tract, not even matrimony." 

Hence the slave can have no wife. He is allowed to 
cohabit with a slave woman, because the master's interest 
is doubly favored by it; in the production of children, 
which are money in his pocket, and in the formation of 
a new tie to keep the slave submissive, and prevent his 
running away. The slave woman has, and can have, no 
husband. The whole policy of the slave system is to in- 
duce her to bear children, the more the better. But the 
law is absolutely indifferent as to who is the father of a 
slave woman's child. It follows the condition of the 
mother, and is money in her master's pocket. But this 
mother can not have a husband, sharing with her the de- 
lightful right and privilege to dwell together '-until death 
them do part." As soon as it becomes the master's pe- 
cuniary interest to part them, the laws and customs, of 
both State and Church, allow him to do so, and actually 
interfere no more in the question by what male partner 
the separated slave woman shall bear another child, than 
in the case of a cow or a mare owned by the same master. 

Do you know, Christian reader, that no slave was ever 
prosecuted for bigamy, or for fornication, or for adultery? 
And do you know the reason, namely, that the law does 
not recognize them as capable of committing these 
crimes? The law no more attempts to regulate the in- 
crease, by generation, of slave property, than of horse 
and cattle property. As far as the law is concerned, the 
master regulates both precisely as he chooses. If he 
chooses himself to be the father of every slave child born 



AS AFFECTED BY SLAVERY. 13 

on liis estate, lie thereby commits no oiFence against the 
law ; and, amazing as it may seem, the Church, by an 
express rule, refuses to receive the testimony of a slave 
woman wronged in this way, against her master or any 
other white man. The master, and the master's sons, 
and the overseer, and the driver, have the female slaves 
of the estate always in their power, and subject to the 
influence either of bribes, or threats, or actual violence. 
And, more than this, if any white man, failing to obtain 
her consent, ravishes a female slave, the law forbids her 
to lift her hand against him in self-defence, and provides 
no means whatever, either for her defence or his punish- 
ment; and if she turns to the Church for protection, 
even if the ravisher as well as herself be a member of it, 
the Church refuses to take her testimony against him. 
She roust have white witnesses. And how is she to have 
them in such a case ? 

That element of marriage by which the bodies of hus- 
band and wife are mutually pledged, (and as far as law 
can do it, secured,) to each other and to no one else, has no 
existence to the slave ; and it is nullified by the act of the 
Church equally with that of the State. Both these unite 
in putting asunder those whom God hath joined together. 

But again. Marriage is a union for mutual help as 
well as mutual love. It implies a community of interest 
not less than of affection. If a man is to forsake even his 
father and mother that he may cleave unto his wife, how 
much more are all otlier relations to be ranked as subor- 
dinate to this? It is the obvious duty as well as the 
right of a husband to provide for the defence, and secu- 
rity, and comfort, and happiness of his wife, before those 
of any other human being. But slavery not only disre- 
gards this duty and this right, but undertakes to reverse 
them. Instead of allowing the natural rights and duties 
of this relation to the slave man and woman who wish to 
live together in mutual love and help, the master claims 
the whole time and the whole labor of both as his right, 
as well as their bodies as his property. If, as very fre- 
quently happens, he allows them a small piece of ground, 
and a certain portion of time to cultivate it, he calls 
this an indulgence. It is entirely within his power to 
give or not to give it. Just as he may or may not, as he 



14 THE FAMILY RELATION, 

pleases, claim the body of the slave woman for the grati- 
fication of his lust, just so he may, if he pleases, expend 
the whole time and strength of both man and woman in 
promoting his pecuniary interest. The civil law ex- 
pressly authorizes both these acts of enormous injustice, 
and the Church so nicely conforms her rules to the slave- 
holder's convenience, that if he chooses to commit either, 
or both of these sins, he can do it with absolute im- 
punity. Neither slave man nor slave woman is allowed 
to testify against him. 

But, it is said, the Gospel is preached to the slaves, 
and certainly the Gospel has much to say of the mutual 
duties of husbands and wives. Do the masters prevent 
their slaves from fulfilling the very duties which the 
Scriptures enjoin ? Alas ! read the following testimony, 
consider the trustworthiness and the competence of him 
who gives it, and then say — Is the Gospel preached to 
the slaves? 

Dr. Nelson, author of the well-known work on Infi- 
delity, published by the American Tract Society, after a 
residence of more than forty years in North Carolina, 
and an intimate acquaintance with slavery, says : 

" I say what I know when I speak in relation to this matter. I 
have been intimately acquainted with the religious opi)ortunitie8 
of the slaves — in the constant habit of hearing the sermons which 
are preached to them. And I solemnly affirm that, during the forty 
years of my residence and observation in this line, I never heard a 
single one of these sermons but what was taken up with the obli- 
gations and duties of slaves to their masters. Indeed, I never heard 
a sermon to slaves but what made obedience to masters by the slaves 
the fundamental and supreme law of religion. Any candid and in- 
telligent man can decide whether such preaching is not, as to re- 
ligious purposes, worse than none at all.'' 

fs it strange then that the slaves are degraded ? The Synod of 
South Carolina and Georgia only declared a natural and necessary 
result of the slave s^'stem, when they said that the slaves were "in 
the condition of heathen — and in some respects, in a worse condi- 
tion. Their moral and religious condition is such, that thei/ may 
justly be considered the heathen of thi^ Christian country." And yet 
every member of this Synod continues to uphold the laws above 
described, in Church and State, by which this heathenism is per- 
petuated. 

How DOES SLAVERY AFFECT THE MARRIAGE RELA- 
TION IN THE CASE OF THE SLAVEHOLDER? 

1. Slavery discourages marriage among young men, by 



AS AFFECTED BY SLAVERY. 15 

first keeping them familiar, from childhood, with impure 
ideas, sights, language, and habits, and then providing, 
for the persons thus corrupted, a free indulgence of the 
sexual appetite without marriage. 

A singularly calm and moderate writer, whose accuracy 
is entirely unquestioned, gives the following testimony 
in a book just published:* 

"A gentleman in an inland Southern town said to me: 'I have 
now but one servant. If I should marry, I should be obliged to buy- 
three more, and that alone would withdraw from my capital at 
least 3,000 dollars.' "—p. 600. 

"A planter told me that the practice [of licentious connection 
with slave women] was not occasional or general, it was universal. 
There is not, he said, a likely looking black girl in this State, that 
is not the paramour of a white man. There is not an old planta- 
tion, in which the grandchildren of the owner are not whipped in 
the field by his overseer." — p. 602. 

Dr. Parsons, of Windham, Maine, another competent 
and reliable witness, testifies :f 

*' The female slave cannot be otherwise than degraded. Subjected 
at all times to the passions of the whites, chastity and refinement 
are out of the question. They are stripped entirely naked to be 
punished, not only on the plantations, but by the city marshals in 
the cities, to whom the masters send them for this purpose. And 
often they are exposed in public for sale in the same condition." — • 
p. 29-5. 

Upon this last point we have the testimony of Rev. T. 
"W. Higginson, a well-known clergyman of Worcester, 
Mass., who, in a letter to the New York Tribune, July 
2d, 1856, tells what he saw and heard in Mr. Corbin 
Thompson's negro-yard in St. Louis. A gentleman of 
that city had just concluded a bargain for a colored girl. 

" ' Girl is sound, I suppose?' carelessly inquired the purchaser. 

"'Wind and limb,' responded the trader. '■But strip her naked 
and examine every inch of her if you ivish,^ he quickly added ; ^ I never 
have any disguises ivith my customers.'" 

The last evidence to be presented upon this point is 
the testimony of a INorthern lady of high intelligence 
and excellence, well known to the writer of these pages, 
who found, in the course of her residence in various slave 

*'' A journey in the sea-board slave States: by Frederick Law 01m- 
stead, author of AValks and Talks of an American farmer in England." 

"f" '* Inside View of Slavery, or a Tour among the Planters. By C. G. 
Parsons, M. D. With an Introductory Note by Mrs. H. B. Stowe." 



16 THE FAMILY RELATION, 

States, not only such amazing depravity in their social 
system, but such an amazing acquiescence in it on the 
part of women as well as men, that, after returning to the 
North, she wrote a tract, entitled " Influence of Slavery 
upon the White population." She says, page 7th, 

"But why should we expect purity, when every restraint is re- 
moved which helps to subdue the clamors of the animal nature, 
while every possible opportunity is offered for its indulgence. 

"There is no fear of public opinion, for there is no danger of de- 
tection, since the slave is bound to submit in silence. 

" There is no loss of social position consequent upon the grossest 
licentiousness. 

" The most honorable social and political distinctions are awarded 
without reference to the private character of the individual. 
" The libertine maintains a high and honored standing in the church. 

" The law decrees that every child born of a slave shall follow 
the condition of its mother, and thus not only extends no protec- 
tion to virtue, but offers a premium to vice. 

" Nor is one class of society more base than another in this re- 
spect. The highest social life is often the most vile in its secret 
history. A young man at the age of twenty-one takes possession 
of his portion of the paternal estate, and erects a house upon it, 
where he retires and establishes a household for himself. He 
secures what means of gratification his taste can select, and thus 
lives sometimes ten or fifteen years, if no heiress or beauty cross his 
path, of sufficient attractions to induce him to add her as an orna- 
mental appendage to his establishment. Meanwhile his human 
"property" steadily increases, both in numbers and value; for the 
lighter the mulatto the more desirable among the fastidious; and 
rare beauty is often the result of a second intermingling of the same 
aristocratic blood with the offspring of a former passion. From 
time to time, friends come to visit this bachelor hall, and in due 
season the master is repaid for his hospitality to them by a valuable 
addition to his stock of human chattels. 

" If in due time a wife be wooed and won, what is she? Nothing 
but "the fairest among his concubines." wShe is not his tri/e ; and 
if she deserve the name of woman, her fate is a living death.'' 

This brings us to the topic next in order, namely; 

2. Slavery destroys both the peace and the purity 
which properly belong to marriage, by complicating it 
with innumerable adulteries. 

Read upon this point the unimpeachable testimony of 
a Southern lady,* Mrs. Margaret Douglas of Virginia. 

* The Personal Narrative of Mrs. Margaret Douglas, a Southern 
woman, who was imprisoned for one month in the common jail of Nor- 
folk, under the laws of Virginia, for the crime of teaching free colored 
children to read: pp. 65. 



AS AFFECTED 3Y SLAVERY. 



f? 



" I now approach a subject vitally connected "with the interests 
of the South and the welfare of humanity. In doing so, I tell my 
Southern sisters a truth which, however they may have learned it 
by sad experience, has probably never been thus presented to them 
before. In this truth is to he found the graiid secret of the opposition 
to the instruction of the colored race. In this truth also lies the grand 
secret of the discontent and rebellion among the slaves. Knowing 
this, it is easy to perceive why such strenuous efforts are made to 
keep the colored population in darkness and ignorance. -^ * This 
subject demands the attention, not only of the religious population, 
but of law-makers and statesmen. It is the one great evil hanging 
over the Southern slave States, destroying domestic happiness and 
the peace of thousands. It is summed up in the single word, amal- 
gamation. This, and this only, causes the vast extent of ignorance, 
degradation and crime, that lies like a black cloud over the whole 
South. And the practice is more general than even Southerners 
are willing to allow. It pervades the entire society. Its followers 
are to be found among all ranks, and occupations, and professions. 
The white mothers and daughters of the South have suffered under 
it for years — have seen their dearest affections trampled upon, their 
hopes of domestic happiness destroyed, and their future lives em- 
bittered even to agony, by those who should be all in all to them, 
as husbands, sons, and brothers. I cannot use too strong language 
in relation to this subject, for I know that it will meet with a 
heartfelt response from every Southern woman. I would deal deli- 
cately Avith them if I could, but they know the fact, and their hearts 
bleed under its knowledge, however they may have attempted to 
conceal their discoveries. Southern wives know that their husbands 
come to them * * * from the arms of their tawny mistresses. 
Father and son seek the same sources of excitement, scarcely blush- 
ing when detected, and recklessly defying every command of God, 
and every tie of morality and human affection." 

Can the white men of the South be expected to be 
pure, growing up in the midst of temptations such as we 
have described ? Can the marriages of slaveholders ever 
be what they should be, while the laws, both of Church 
and State, so expressly secure indulgence to the lust of 
the eye and the lust of the flesh ? Is it not yet time to 
direct our thoughts and efforts to the entire overthrow 
of slavery ? 

We have seen that the establishment, by law, of abso- 
lute, irresponsible power on one side, and entire sub- 
jection on the other, annihilates, to the slave, the relation 
of husband and wife, and poisons it to the slaveholding 
family by infidelity, suspicion, contention, and the in- 
tensest bitterness of feeling. We have now to inquire, 
how does slavery affect the relation of 



18 

Parent and Child. 

We will take it for granted, that the principles prop- 
erly regulating this relation, are found in the following 
precepts of Scripture. 

" Train up a child in the way he should go." 

" Children, obey your parents in the Lord." 

Let us first look at this relation as it exists in the 
slave family. 

The proper training up of a child requires, on the part 
of the parent, intelligence, a moral and religious character, 
a recognized authority, and a power to seclude the child 
from external vicious or otherwise injurious influences. 

The very mention of these constituent parts of the pa- 
rental relation, shows how impossible it is for the slave 
father or mother to exercise them. 

The means of knowledge are forbidden by law to both 
parent and child. In respect to morality and religion, we 
have seen the testimony of the Synod of South Carolina 
and Georgia, (and pages more such might be quoted, had 
we space,) that the slaves "may justly be considered 
heathen," and the testimony of Rev. Dr. I>'^elson, that 
the sermons generally preached to the slaves are, " as to 
religious purposes, worse than none at all." The au- 
thority of a slave father or mother over their child is 
not recognized by the slaveholder in the slightest degree. 
They all, father, mother, and child, are the property of 
the slaveholder. The assumption, for a moment, of a 
right on the part of the slave parent to give, or of the 
child to obey, a direction contrary to the will of him who 
claims to owii them both, would be treated as rebellion 
and insufferable insolence combined. Shall property say 
unto the owner who holds, directs, and controls it. Why 
dost thou direct me thus? And as to the power of with- 
drawing a child from unhealthy employment or vicious 
influences, or profligate companions, the son of the slave- 
holder may be the very worst associate for the daughter 
of the slave ; but how is the slave to help either himself 
or his daughter? Both of them are utterly helpless, clay 
in the hands of the potter, even when they know that he 
is determined to mold them both into " vessels unto 
dishonor." To slaves, the parental relation, like the 
matrimonial one, is annihilated. 



AS AFFECTED BY SLAVERY. 10 

How DOES Slavery affect the Parental Rela- 
tion IN THE CASE OF THE SLAVEHOLDER ? 

The slaveholder has, undoubtedly, a recognized au- 
thority to control his children. Let us suppose that he 
has also intelligence, such average development of the 
moral and religious character as is customary in a slave- 
holding community, and a disposition to withdraw his 
children from vicious influences. The question is, Can 
he do this ? Can he keep them pure and virtuous without 
sending them permanently away from home ? Testimony 
must answer this question. We want the evidence of in- 
telligent and reliable persons. But this exists in such 
abundance, that our only difficulty is to find space in this 
tract for a tenth part of it. 

Said Jefferson, as long ago as 1782, speaking of the 
natural and inevitable tendency of slavery, 

" The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual 
exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting des- 
potism on one part, and degrading submission on the other. Our 
children see this, and learn to imitate it. The parent storms, the 
child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same 
airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives loose to the worst of pas- 
sions, and thus nursed, educated and exercised in tyranny, can not 
but be stamped by it Avith odious peculiarities." 

The following scene was witnessed and described by 
Mr. Olmsted. Sea-board Slave States, p. 402 : 

" A party of fashionably dressed people took the train to Charles- 
ton ; two families, apparently, returning from a visit to their plan- 
tations. They came to the station in handsome coaches. Some 
minutes before the rest, there entered the car, in which I was alone, 
and reclining on a bench in the corner, an old nurse, with a baby, 
and two young negro women, having care of half a dozen children, 
mostly girls, from three to fifteen years of age. As they closed the 
door, the negro girls seemed to resume a conversation, or quarrel. 
Their language was loud and obscene, such as I never heard before 
from any but the most depraved and beastly women of the streets. 
Upon observing me they dropped their voices, but not Avith any ap- 
pearance of shame, and continued their altercation until their mis- 
tresses entered. The white children, in the mean time, had listened 
without any appearance of wonder or annoyance. The moment 
the ladies opened the door they became silent." 

Further on, Mr. Olmsted says : 

" A large planter told me the reason he sent his boys to the 
North to be educated, was, that there was no possibility of their 
being brought up in decency at home. Another planter told me 
that he was intending to move to a free country on this account. 



20 THE FAMILY RELATION, 

He said that tbe practice [of illicit connection with slave-girls] was 
not occasional, or general, it was U7iiversal." P. 602. 

The tract above referred to, " Influence of Slavery 
upon the White population," an authority of the very 
highest class, gives us a full statement of the truth upon 
this most important subject, as follows : 

" The life of mental and physical inactivity that Southern women 
lead, renders them incapable of a judicious training of their chil- 
dren, and, in general, they seem entirely ignorant of the responsi- 
bilities involved in the relation of a mother. They are too essen- 
tially indolent to undertake the arduous duty of 'managing' any 
thing or any body; and thus the precious years of infancy are 
committed to the most ignorant or malicious hands. 

" As soon as the little one is old enough to seek playmates, bis 
foster brother and the little negroes near his age are his constant 
companions. They become next the instructors of his youth, and 
their language, habits,, and manners form the strongest associations 
of his childhood. 

"Meanwhile, 'human nature' begins to show itself with consid- 
erable vigor. The little master gets angry with his y)laymates; he 
fights and beats them, while they are never to strike back. His lit- 
tle foster brother, who is generally presented to him for a body- 
servant, becomes his favored victim. lie beats him the most be- 
cause he is his constant companion, and oftenest ofl'ends him ; and 
the enslaved brother is taught that he must bear more because he 
especially belongs to his young master. 

" Occasionally a mother corrects her son, and begs him not to 
strike, because it is not 'pretty,' But, as a general rule, as soon as 
the child learns the use of his little fist, he finds it most efl'ectual 
for his purposes, and in the exercise of ungoverned passion and im- 
perious self-will, the years of childhood prepare the way for the 
deeper sins of manhood. 

" And now I approach a part of ray subject from which I would 
gladly draw back, were I not riveted to the point by my desire to 
be faithful to my purpose of setting forth the effects of slavery upon 
the master. It is a painful and delicate office to do justice to this 
matter; but I speak to the pure in heart, who seek to know and 
defend eternal truths. 

" By a strange misnomer, slavery has been called a 'domestic' 
institution; but before its presence, all that is properly implied in 
that word domestic vanishes like an exorcised spirit. The desola- 
tion wrought among the colored victims of slavery is terrible, and 
mighty indeed is their demand for redress; but the}' have their re- 
venge in the wreck of the domestic happiness of their oppressors. 

" I have said that the white child is committed entirely to the 
care of the colored nurse, and thus the process of contamination 
begins in infancy. Young children are familiarized to sights and 
associations which destroy the instinctive modesty of youth. They 
are also placed in such relations to the colored children, through 



AS AFFECTED BY SLAVERY. 21 

the ignorance or malice of the nurse, as to stimulate the passions 
into premature activity. Some nurses believe that personal inti- 
macies between the young master and his young female compan- 
ions cultivate a closer affection, and insure the latter from the 
chances of being sold. Others, of a fiercer temper, seek their re- 
venge for outrages committed on themselves in order to exult over 
the wreck of early manhood always resulting from self-indulgence. 
By whichever process the result is attained, it is a well-known fact 
that purity among Southern men is almost an unknown virtue." 

We inquire in the next place — 

How does slavery affect the RELIGIOUS cliaracter of a 
community, both in general, and in regard to the specific 
relation of MAST¥.R and servant? 

Dr. Parsons, author of the "Inside View of Slavery," 
who traveled and resided at the South for the express 
purpose of personally acquainting himself with the char- 
acter and influence of that institution, gives full and im- 
portant testimony on this point, a small portion of which 
we will quote : 

" One of the strangest sights to a New England man, on visiting 
the Southern States, is the desecration of the Sabbath. In some 
of the cities, especially if a good number of the business men are 
from the North, the churches are tolerably well attended — there 
being but one service for the day. But even here the afternoon 
and evening are much devoted to amusements. And, in fact, 
throughout the entire South, with not very numerous exceptions, 
the Sabbath, instead of being a day of rest, or of worship, is a holi- 
day — occupied mainly in pleasures and sport." P. 254. 

" A colporteur of the American Tract Society, writing to the 
Maine Christian Mirror, under date of May 9th, 1854, says: 'In 
Mississippi, where I am laboring, drinking, gaming, and horse- 
racing are common on the Sabbath — and the Sabbath is dis- 
tinguished from other days by the firing of guns.' 

"A large majority of the slaves labor on the Sabbath — not usu- 
ally at the daily task — but they wash and iron, make and mend 
their garments, cut wood, and work in their gardens. 

" But the slaves do not labor for themselves alone. In the 
planting districts, especially during the busy season of the year, 
the slaves are not permitted to make the Sabbath even a holiday. 
Instances are by no means rare, even among masters professing to 
be Christians, in which the slaves are compelled to labor on the 
Sabbath as on other days. 

" Rev. H. B. Abbott, pastor of the M. E. Church at Augusta, Me., 
was formerly a counsellor at law in Mississippi. In a letter to me, 
dated April 10th, 1854, he says : ' I am acquainted with a Baptist 
preacher in Mississippi who compelled his slaves to labor on the 
Sabbath, and justified himself under the plea that, if they were 
not at work, they v/ould be sporting, and roving about the fields 



22 

and -woods, thereby desecrating the Sabbath more than by laboring 
under an overseer.' 

'' I was spending a Sabbath in the city of A. Early in the day 
I noticed the planters from the surrounding country coming in to 
attend the morning service. Many of them were members of the 
city churches. They remained in the city after the meetings were 
closed, and about noon, or a little later, their slaves began to ar- 
rive, with mule-teams, loaded with cotton and other kinds of pro- 
duce. In the afternoon the stores were opened, and these Christian 
slaveholders exchanged their produce for groceries, and other com- 
modities, with which they sent their slaves home, while they re- 
mained, drinking whisky and cracking jokes, until the cool of tho 
evening." Pp. 225-7. 

We will close with two extreme but most thorouglily 
authenticated instances of the depraving influence of that 
power which the law gives to every slaveholder, to con- 
trol and nullify the slave's conscience. 

The first is vouched for by a lady extensively and 
most favorably known, daughter of the late Judge 
Grimke, of the Supreme Court of South Carolina, and 
sister of the late Thomas S. Grimke, Esq, : 

" A beloved friend in South Carolina, the wife of a slaveholder, 
with whom I often mingled my tears, when, helpless and hopeless, 
we deplored together the horrors of slavery, related to me, some 
time since, the following circumstance: 

"On the plantation adjoining her husband's, there was a slave of 
pre-eminent piety. His master was not a professor of religion, but 
the superior excellence of this disciple of Christ was not unmarked 
by him, and I believe he was so sensible of the good influence of 
his piety that he did not deprive him of the few religious privileges 
within his reach. A planter was one day dining with the owner 
of this slave, and in the course of conversation observed that all 
profession of religion among slaves was mere hypocrisy. The 
other asserted a contrary opinion, adding, 4 have a slave who, I 
believe, would rather die than deny his Savior,' This was ridi- 
culed, and the master urged to prove the assertion. He accordingly 
sent for this man of God, and peremptorily ordered him to deny 
his belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, The slave pleaded to be ex- 
cused, constantly affirming that he would rather die than deny the 
Redeemer, whose blood was shed for him. His master, after vainly 
trying to induce obedience by threats, had him terribly whipped. 
The fortitude of the sufferer was not to be shaken. He nobly 
rejected the offer of exemption from further chastisement at the 
expense of destroying his soul, and this blessed martyr died in con- 
sequence of this severe infliction. Sarah M, Grimke." 

"A few days since," says a late writer in the Boston Congrega- 
tionalist, "a most affecting fact was stated to us by the Rev. Mr. 
Alvord. During a residence of several months in Florida, for hia 
health, he was often wont to take exercise by working with the 



AS AFFECTED BY SLAVERY. 23 

slaves oa the plantation where he was. And havina: gained their 
confidence thus, they freely opened their hearts to him as a friend ; a 
thing- which slaves do not do to every man. and especially to chance 
visitors, whom they judge to be in the interest of iheir mastere. 

•'In one case he called to see a slave who was in confinement for 
endeavoring to follow his conscience in keeping holy the Sabbath 
day in the worship of God, By working nights, he actually per- 
formed the labor assigned for seven days, and then spent the Sab- 
bath in worship. His master discouraged it, and imprisoned him, 
and cut and mangled his body with scourges to subdue his will, 
and compel him to work on the Sabbath, After the wounds began 
to heal, lie would cut them open from time to time, by repeated 
gcourgings. Mr. Alvord saw his wounds, and gazed with painful 
sympathy upon his honest face, wet with tears, as he told the 
severity of his trial. At last, after repeated scourgiugs, his spirit 
failed, and he submitted to his masters impious will.' 

The details of evidence which we have given in the preceding 
pages are important, because every one recognizes the value of doc- 
umentary evidence, and the testimony of reliable eye and ear wit- 
nesses; and we all believe, on such authority, statements respecting 
the customs of a community, the language of ministers, the rules 
of Churches, and the conduct of Church members, which vary ma- 
terially from all our own experience. But the ihinkithj man sees 
that all that we have said, and more, flows necessarily and inevi- 
tably from such an institution as slavery. No human being is fit 
to be trusted with absolute, irresponsible power; such power as we 
have seen to be delegated to every master of every slave, by Judge 
Stroud's abstract of the slave laws. If the best portion of our own 
community were selected to hold and use such authority, they 
would very soon become corrupted. What, then, must be the re- 
sult where all classes in a large community, good, bad. and indif- 
ferent, have held and exercised this power for a hundred years; 
where the laws of the State, the customs of the Church, and the 
habits of the people have all along been shaping themselves to sus- 
tain it; where some ministers, from the pulpit and the press, 
boldly declare that it is right ; where the remainder carefully avoid 
stigmatizing it as wrong; where the judge on the bench rules that, 
though clearly unjust, it must be supported while it is law; and 
where the mass of the people practice it as an admitted custom, 
little solicitous about either the law or the right ; what then must 
slavery be ? No less foul, no less wicked, no less destructive to 
peace, purity, and welf;\re, in the Family, the Church, and the 
State, than we have seen it in these pages. 

Finally, we have to consider 

THE BEAIilXGS OF SLAVERY ON SOCIETY AT LARGE. 

But is not this question already answered ? We have seen the 
effect of slavery upon the family; and society at large is but an 



24 THE FAJniY RELATION. 

aggregate of families. Doth a fountain send forth at the same 
place sweet water and bitter? The corruption wrought upon the 
slaveholder in his home can not be laid aside when he goes forth 
to act in the various relations of social and public life. If the in- 
fluences which essentially belong to slaveholdiug relation have 
made him (a3 we have seen) a worse husband, a worse father, a 
worse master, and a worse Church member, they have made him a 
worse man, and deteriorated his action and his influence in society 
at large, and in every special relation of it. And the reason la 
plain. Apart from all the features of slavery that are commonly 
called its abuse* — as if the whole of it were not an abuse — its 
radical, central idea is, both theoretically and practically, in direct 
antagonism to Chriiticemty . By undertaking to make the master's 
will the supreme law to the slave, and by denying to the slave 
the right to refuse oh»edience in matters morally wrong, slavery 
erects itself against God, denies His supremacy, sets up a will in 
opposition to His, and by accustoming the slaveholder to the prac- 
tical exercise of his own will as supreme in power, and to the 
recognition of that will (not only by the ignorant slaves, but by 
the law of the land,) as supreme in right, it inevitablij saps the 
foundations of morality and religion in his character. Making him 
a worse man, it of course makes him a worse citizen. 

If we cannot touch pitch without defilement, how much less can 
we live, and work, and have our daily occupation in it without 
this result. It is as true of the Family, the Church, and the Com- 
munity, as of the individual, that whoever would secure peace, in- 
ternal prosperity and true welfare, must ht first pcee. But slavery 
of necessity undermines and destroys purity, even in its inmost 
citadel, the institution earliest established by the Divine love for 
the promotion of human happiness and welfare, The Family Rela- 
tion. 



Office and Depository of the American Eef orm Tract and Book Society, 
Xo. 28 West Focbth Stseet. 

CisCTKNATi, January, 1858. 

Thi Avzbicav BErORX Teact axd Book Societt, it ia beliered, i« the offspring of 
necesaicy, brought into existence Uj fill a racuom left nnoceapied \>y mon other Pabliah- 
iDg Bo&rda And Institations — its object being to pabii^h sacb Tracta and Bookj a« aro 
necfesaary to awaken a decided, thongh healthful, agitation on the great qoestioni of 
Freedom and Slarcry. This is its primary object, though its constitntion corera the 
broad ground of " promulgating the doctrines of the Reformation, to point out the appli- 
cation of the principles of Chriitiaiiity to erery knowit sin, and to show the sufficiency 
and adaptation of those principles to reaaore all the erila of the world, and bring on a 
form of society in accordance with the Gospel of Christ. To sprea*! these principles the 
Society has iaaned more than twenty Bound Books and forty Tracts, lias .V<<X) pages 
stereotype plates on hand, and sends out 6,000 c^.piea of its "Kecord," monthly. The 
Directors feel encouraged in their work, and will increase their efforts jnst as fajt aa 
funds are proviJed by the friends of the Society. Your aid is respectfully solicit**. 

GEO. L WEED, Corr^:irponding Secr<Uary and Treaturer. 

AMERICA:^ REFORM TEACT AXD BOOK SOaETY, aKCIXSATI, OHIO. 

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